News

Surfin’: Moving Packets with DDP

This week, Surfin’ looks at a new protocol for moving packets through the ether.

Danny Knaggs, 2E0DPK, is designing and developing a new free, open source ham radio protocol called “DDP” -- for “Danny’s Digital Packet” -- that provides a modern alternative to the existing packet radio protocol. Transmitted and received packets are “in plain text so they can be seen by eye (on the waterfall, console, etc.) and for ease of use and implementation.”

Like any other communications protocol, DDP requires “modulation” to move its packets. fldigi and RS-232 provide the back end for DDP to move its packets. By default, DDP uses PSK500R, but it can run on any other PSK mode, too. And using RS-232, you can build your own modems suitable for the application. Knaggs has designed and built two different DDP-suitable modems: an 1800-baud AFSK modem and a 9600-baud GMSK modem.

Danny used Python to write DDP, so it should run on any operating system that supports the Python executable without modification including, but not limited to FreeBSD, Linux and Windows.

DDP already includes some applications including:

BBS server and client apps just like the old bulletin boards

EmComm sends and forwards messages to other organizations during emergencies